Is It Here?

I offer them suffering. Put it in their way as an option, something to be chosen or ignored. Though the choice seems never to occur to them.

Instead they wonder how it is a beneficent soul can place such strife before them, allow such pain to be a part of things.

All I can say is joy is there for the taking. I offer this too. I watch them as they seek.

“Is it here?” they ask, holding up a glistening trinket to the light.

I say nothing. And my silence feels like pain.

“This then? Look at this!”

And they parade, naked and proud mesmerised by youth and beauty, recoiling in horror when time reflects a figure in the mirror they can never accept.

The grate their teeth and curse me.

“Everything collapses in on itself. Back to a single point.”

But even this they don’t accept, though it offers some relief if they would care to dwell upon it.

And I can only wonder at the golden-haired child, graced with vitality and beauty, as she weeps in the rain, slumped in defeat at an elemental assault she surely knows will pass.

I could say something. Have the sky reveal itself, a cerulean blue.

“Look at this.” I could say “Feel this”

Is It Here?

Have the sun warm her cheeks, dry her tears.

Will she see me reaching out from above? Hovering close, the answers she seeks, a mere breath away.

Or will she stare at her reflection and see only horror. Lift her face to the sky, black and thunderous, and wail “let it come down.”